Page 16 of Desperate Victory

“She’s right,” Milo said. “Whatever it is, we will take care of it.”

“If he set us up in some way, we’ll deal with it,” Adam added. “He worked for your father and Graham is already on the list.”

“This just moves him to the top,” Bodhi stated and I blinked slowly.

“You’re going to kill my father?” All these years, I’d wanted to. It had been there, in the back of my mind, and I couldn’t say I hadn’t imagined it. He’d had me beaten, more than once. Done the beating himself until I got too tall. Then he had men for the job.

“Yes.” The answer came from Lainey, succinct and simple. “You don’t have to do anything.”

“You don’t,” Bodhi agreed and Milo nodded.

“We will take care of it,” Adam said at the end.

Casual, direct, and accepted. We were even discussing it in front of Emersyn, Liam and his twin. Then again, Liam knew us and Emersyn…

The horror radiating off of her when she’d seen Karagiani had pissed me off instantly. The horror was gone, replaced by a kind of rough sympathy.

“That’s what family does,” she told me. “They help us face our demons and when we need it, they take those demons out.”

Take the demons out.

I tugged Lainey a little closer and she went pliant against me as I wrapped her up in my arms. “I like having you for a cousin, Em.”

Her grin was wide and accepting. “You’re not so bad, but cousins doesn’t mean you get to be bossy.”

“He’s already bossy,” Lainey muttered and a weird feeling broke in my chest, it crackled and popped. It was as though I’d been drowning from pneumonia, the pressure unbearable, yet now I could breathe again.

“You like us bossy,” I murmured and Lainey pinched me even as she held me tight. I was still shaking, and I wasn’t a fan of it. But every breath seemed to fill me more, bolstering me.

“That leaves really only one question,” Milo said.

“Not it,” Rome and Liam said in a single breath and Milo just snorted.

“Not it, for what…?”

“For cleanup,” Bodhi said in a droll tone, then rolled his head from side to side.

“I can help,” Lainey offered. “Body disposal is not something I’ve really done before.”

I pulled back and stared at her.

“What?” She swung a glance around the room. “I haven’t.”

Fuck, was it any wonder I loved her?

Chapter

Five

LAINEY

Body disposal was not fun. Then again, I hadn’t expected it to be. The boys didn’t object to my helping. Though Bodhi offered up the best descriptions of each step of the process.

Em made a face when he got a little graphic and the twins took her back to the hotel. For all that she’d held up, this had to be bringing up some really bad memories for her. We could go over her plans after this was done. The whole Karagiani reveal had derailed all of us.

Step one in the process involved getting rid of the clothes we were wearing, as well as washing up. Everyone had to scrub off any blood spatter that had gotten on their skin. I was a little sad about my outfit and shoes. But clothing could be replaced.

After, we put on some really terrible plastic outfits over our fresh clothes that reminded me of hazmat suits you see in the movies.

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